BRAZIL
Long-term credit rated “BB-”
The government on Thursday vowed to push on with economic reforms after the international credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) downgraded its long-term credit rating because of “slower than expected” changes by President Michel Temer’s government. S&P downgraded Brazil’s credit standing into junk status, at “BB-,” because of its disappointing efforts to “correct structural fiscal slippage and rising debt levels on a timely basis.” S&P kept the nation’s short-term rating at “B.”
MANUFACTURING
Samsung accused of abuses
Two French campaign groups on Thursday filed a legal case against Samsung Electronics Co in France over the alleged use of child labor and other abuses in Chinese manufacturing plants working for the electronics giant. Accusing the company of using misleading commercial practices, the non-governmental organizations Peuples Solidaires and Sherpa lodged a complaint in Paris against the international parent company and its French subsidiary. The groups alleged that children had been found in Chinese plants producing Samsung products, and that other staff faced severe health problems.
CHINA
SUV popularity saves sales
An industry group says China’s auto sales shrank last month and ended last year up just 1.4 percent over the previous year as the popularity of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) helped to offset contraction in demand for sedans. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers yesterday said last month’s sales of SUVs, sedans and minivans shrank by 0.7 percent from a year earlier to 2.6 million. Total vehicle sales including trucks and buses edged up 0.1 percent to just over 3 million.
INTERNET
Dropbox files for IPO
Dropbox Inc, the file-sharing private company valued at US$10 billion, has filed confidentially for a US initial public offering (IPO), people familiar with the matter said. Goldman Sachs Group Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co are to lead the potential listing, the people said. Dropbox is talking to other banks this month to fill additional roles on the IPO, the people said. The company aims to list in the first half of this year, one of the people said.
SINGAPORE
REIT gains might be limited
Credit Suisse Group AG warned that gains for Singapore’s real-estate investment trusts (REITs) could be limited this year after a surge in prices last year left valuations looking stretched. Kum Soek Ching, head of Southeast Asia research in the firm’s private banking operation, pointed to declines in the extra yield from the securities versus risk-free rates from Singaporean government bonds. For this year, the REITs might return 3.4 percentage points over a 10-year bond, less than the historical average of 3.7 percentage points, Kum wrote in a note.
RETAIL
‘Slave’ coffee pulled
British supermarket Waitrose has pulled a brand of Italian coffee off its shelves after shoppers noticed the packaging featured images of 19th-century slaves working on plantations. Waitrose removed the tins of Saquella 1856 coffee from sale last month after complaints from customers in London about the images of slaves harvesting beans in Guatemala, Central America. Saquella 1856 apologized in a statement for any offence caused by its images, saying it was “shocked to learn they had been interpreted in this way.”
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to